Ah, 2001, what a different era. Jason Statham had just hit the big time, dropping into a couple of sci-fi movie flops that year – Ghosts of Mars and The One – before moving into his more typecast roles. Was 'Stath-fi' an untapped genre that never hit its full potential?
The latter movie, The One, is currently streaming on Netflix – but only for a matter of days (or hours, depending on when you read this), as it'll be taken down from the best streaming service at the end of this week, on 30 May. So if you're into retro sci-fi kung-fu movies (if that's now 'a thing'?) then grab it whilst you can.
Now, I'm a big Statham fan. Sure, his latest, A Working Man, is no The Beekeeper as I'd hoped, which you can catch that on Amazon Prime. However, I'd take his latest work over The One, because the now 24-year-old flick could hardly be called a timeless masterpiece.
The One trailer
What's The One about?
Okay, so Statham is firmly in The One's credits, but he's not exactly the main star. That honour goes to Jet Li, the famous martial artist, whose career was at its absolute peak in the 2000s. His starring role as Gabriel Yulaw sees him take on not one but two characters.
Yulaw, a police officer, faces a dark form of himself who has been sent from a parallel universe. It's a classic good versus evil premise, that sprinkling of sci-fi into what otherwise looks like a conventional cop-based kung-fu action flick of the era.
Statham, meanwhile, plays Evan Funsch – "I am a Multiverse agent" – alongside Harry Roedecker (Delroy Lindo), in an attempt to take down the rogue parallel Yulaw. But things, as ever, do not quite go to plan...
Is The One a good movie?
Based on its reviews and ratings, The One couldn't exactly be called 'the one to watch'. Indeed, its paltry 13% Rotten Tomatoes score attests to that. But if you want to catch Statham in his with-hair era, bringing serious 'British Bruce Willis' vibes, then it's worth a shot.
Perhaps 'Stath-fi' was an untapped genre though. After all, there are dodgy AI-generated trailers aplenty for would-be sci-fi thrillers "coming later this year". They're not, of course, but clearly people love a bit of Statham just as much as they do the sci-fi genre.
Maybe in a parallel universe sometime in the future, the stars will align and Statham will head up a mainstream sci-fi hit. For now – however briefly – you can catch The One on Netflix instead.
